


Life Lessons

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Immortals AU, M/M, Mages, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4649811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Eren volunteered to drop a get-well card off at his sick teacher's apartment he never expected to be dragged into a world of immortal mages, the secrets they hide, and the battles they fight while the rest of the world remains oblivious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lesson One

I'm still not entirely sure just what happened, all I know is that when he grabbed my hand that day he pulled me into an entirely new world. I do know this though; I don't regret a thing.

_

I stood outside the apartment door for a solid ten minutes before I gathered enough courage to knock on the polished surface; I could do this, I just needed my heart to stop beating so fast and my breaths to stop coming in short pants. This was totally normal for a high school student to do, visit a sick teacher to give him a card signed by all the students and hoping for him to get well soon. Perfectly acceptable, nothing strange about it, hell my biology teacher had asked me to do it.

Well, I'd volunteered when Mx. Zoe had asked someone to deliver the card to Mr. A; it was practically the same thing. It wasn't like I had a crush on my vertically-challenged, grumpy, foul-mouthed history teacher or anything, I just respected him and found his eyes attractive and who was I fucking kidding I'd liked him since the first day of school. I was so screwed.

From inside the apartment I could hear footsteps approaching the where I stood nervously and the door was flung open to reveal not my teacher, but a teenage boy who must have been Mr. A's younger brother. He had the same black hair and grey eyes, the same thin face and angry look; it was almost unnerving how much they looked alike and I found myself unable to speak under this boy's glare.

"What?" The raven demanded and I noticed a hoarseness to his voice before noticing other things as well, like huge purple bags under both eyes and a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He coughed and glowered at me once more. "Answer the question brat; what do you want? If you don't say anything in the next five seconds I'm closing the door."

I managed to find my voice and squeaked a reply. "I'm looking for Mr. A, his students and Mx. Zoe got him a get well card and I was asked to deliver it to him..." I took a deep breath and continued. "I-Is he here?"

The boy groaned and rolled his eyes before answering me. "He's at the doctor's office, and no, I don't know when he'll be home." With that, he started closing the door and it felt like the ground was falling out from under my feet; I had already lost and I hadn't even done anything yet. What had I expected, really? That he would express his eternal gratefulness and... No, nothing would ever happen. I was being stupid and it would be just better if I left.

My feet began their slow, grudging descent down the six flights of stairs, not really paying attention to where I was going even after I bumped into someone. Glancing behind me I saw two men dressed in black approach the door I had just stood in front of, causing me to stand on the landing below and just watch them out of curiosity. As I stared a third person joined them, a woman with a large nose and blonde hair dressed similarly, and she nodded at the men, as though they were conspiring together.

A chill went down my spine, something bad was going to happen, this wasn't right, not at all; just what was going on here and why was my history teacher involved?

"We know you are in there Ackerman." The shorter, stockier man spoke, his voice deep and harsh. "Do not make us break down the door."

My head spun, Ackerman? Was that Mr. A's last name? My mind conjured up an image of Mikasa and I gulped. Was she involved in this as well?

The blonde woman addressed the closed door now, her voice held traces of an accent I couldn't place now, Russian maybe. "You can't run anymore Ackerman; did you really think that we would not find you? We will always find you, no matter where you go we will follow."

The door opened and the boy stood there, looking even sicker than he had been a few minutes ago. This seemed to please the woman; she grinned and laughed at the pitiful sight before her.

"It hurts doesn't it? That poison is hard to find but for you it was worth it; it is always going to be worth it. Do you know there is a bounty on your head now, Ackerman? Just what did you do to your uncle to make him want you so badly?" Her face twisted in a sadistic grin and upon seeing it my body refused to watch anymore. I turned on the landing and charged up the stairs before punching the horrible woman in the face, sending her crashing to the floor in a beautiful spinning motion.

Unfortunately, this had the added effect of drawing everyone's attention to me, making me notice the two men who worked with the blondie I'd just slugged were huge and muscled, and now they were angry.

"What are you doing brat?" The boy demanded of me, a fire in his eyes that I hadn't seen before. "Go away! You shouldn't be here!"

"Oh, and I should leave you with these psychos then? Do you want to die?" I was angry, how dare this kid yell at me like this.

The raven muttered something under his breath before dashing out of the doorway, grabbing my hand, and dragging me down the apartment stairs until we were in the basement. "You little shit," he panted, glaring at me until he collapsed onto his knees in a coughing fit, and when he stood I saw blood trickling out of his mouth. "You just had to get involved in this mess."

I glowered at him, confused and irritated. "I couldn't have left you even if I wanted to, hell, I don't even know you!"

"Exactly my point brat, you aren't a part of this mess but since you punched Leonhart up there I suspect her goons will assume we're connected somehow and..." Footsteps sounded above our heads and the boy let out a small groan before pulling me along behind him again.

"Who are you? What does my teacher have to do with this mess? What's going on?" I yelled to his back, desperate to know just what I had gotten myself involved with, and yet not sure I wanted to hear the answer. To my surprise, the raven dragged me into an alley, slammed me against one of the filthy walls as he drew a bottle from his pocket, and poured two brightly colored pills into his hand before holding the pink one out to me.

"Take it. Now. Unless you want to die." I took the pill in my hand but before I could decide if I actually wanted to ingest some unknown substance forced upon me by a stranger we were running again. The streets blurred together and all I knew was this hand holding mine tight, pulling me along to who-knew where.

"You haven't taken it yet? Goddamnit brat, do you ever follow instructions?" Looking directly at me he popped his own orange pill into his mouth and chewed it before changing right before my eyes. His face became longer, his shoulders broadened, even the hand clutching mine grew larger, even his clothes changed; within a few seconds my history teacher was the one dragging me along instead of the boy, dressed in his usual immaculate suit. He glared at me and swore before shoving the pink pill into my mouth and pulling me tight against his body as my insides turned to fire. I was dying, he'd poisoned me, the heat was coursing through my veins and I could tell something unnatural was going on. Then the pain went away and all I could feel was the overwhelming heat of the man holding me.

"Gah!" I pushed him away from me and he collapsed to the sidewalk, panting, his hair drenched in sweat. Immediately I realized my mistake and approached him again before noticing a huge difference in my clothing. Instead of the jeans and band shirt I'd been wearing until a minute ago, I was now dressed in a flowing green skirt and white blouse, which accentuated my... Why did I have boobs? Something tickled the back of my neck and when I brushed it away, I found my hair had grown and now reached the middle of my back. I was a girl, why was I a girl? What the hell was going on?

Whispers brought me out of my thoughts and I noticed Mr. A was still lying on the ground, his eyes barely open; which was drawing a good deal of attention. I attempted to pull one arm over my shoulder and carry him but he was too heavy for such a short man, and my newly changed female body wasn't strong enough to move him. What was I going to do?

A car screeched to a halt on the street in front of me and the door to the backseat was flew. "Get in! Now!" A voice I vaguely recognized shouted at me but I was unable to do anything, having collapsed to the sidewalk shaking in terror. Nothing made sense anymore, nothing. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until things got better, but who knew if that would ever happen.

"Eren, I'm going to pick you up now." A man's voice addressed me now and I vaguely wondered how he knew who I was now that I was a girl. Strong arms scooped me up from the ground and I let them carry me into the car, slumped next to me in the backseat was my unconscious history teacher and in the driver's seat was-

"Mx. Zoe?" I rasped out, unable to comprehend what was going on. The man who'd carried me sat down in the passenger's seat and I saw it was the school principal, Mr. Smith; No wonder he could pick me up so easily.

"Heya Eren!" My biology teacher greeted me like we'd merely ran into each other at a grocery store, not that they'd picked up Mr. A and I after we were being chased by freaks who wanted to kill us both. Oh, and how my history teacher could go from being a teenage boy to a man in seconds and I could become a girl by taking some pills. "How's your day going?"

Mr. Smith spoke to the crazy driver as a teacher would to a troublesome student. "Hanji, it's pretty clear Eren's not having a good day, so maybe we should skip the formalities and go straight to explaining what's going on."

They nodded and grinned back at me in the rearview mirror. "Well Eren, I'd like you to meet Mr. Levi Ackerman, one of the most wanted mages in the world; also known as Mr. A, your history teacher. His real age is... How old is Levi again Erwin?"

"241 if I remember correctly; he became immortal at 18 during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, hasn't aged a day since."

"He's still so young, the baby." Mx. Zoe snickered as she swerved in between two cars.

"Anyway Eren, Zoe, Levi, and I, as well as several other people at your school are mages, and Levi is the strongest among us in addition to having quite the harsh backstory. Long story short: people from his past want him dead and we're trying to stop that because he really is a nice guy once you get to know him."

"He's such a sweetie Eren, and I know he didn't want to drag you into this mess." Mx. Zoe added.

I was silent, unable to process just what I was hearing. Immortals? Mages? My head swam and I felt dizzy, the heat from earlier was coming back, stronger this time and in my current state I let the darkness engulf me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, I'm alive?
> 
> I've been trying not to really post anything if I don't have a decent amount written and some general idea of where it's going.
> 
> This story I got the idea for in a dream a week ago, more specifically I dreamed about the running scene and the disguise pills. Huzzah for weirdass dreams that make me write fanfiction. Actually I was considering making this a real story but I decided to try it out as a fanfic for now so I could work on the plot without having to create characters for the time being.
> 
> I have a concrete beginning, which is what I just posted, and a solid ending, a total of around 5,000 words written as of posting this. Crossing my fingers that I actually finish this one. I wasn't going to post this at all but I feel bad for not posting anything.
> 
> Lastly, Mx. is a title used for gender-neutral people, it's apparently pronounced Mix or Mux, but I thought it would be the best thing to call Hanji since I'm trying to write them as gender-neutral.
> 
> Um, do you like this one? Would you like me to post more? The next chapter is Levi's pov.


	2. Lesson Two

he stench of blood choked me as I struggled to walk through the busy streets, desperate to get away from the death-filled square and Madame Guillotine. I just wanted to bury my face in my mother's arms and pretend none of these horrors were taking place. Was it too much to ask for to live a peaceful life with my mother?

I didn't want to fight, nor did I want be surrounded by the horrors that took place every day in France; but what choice did I have? I couldn't leave the only family I'd ever known, ever loved, and mother couldn't leave this place without risking death by her employer. The man was already cross with her for the decrease in how many clients she got; despite the slaughter of people in the streets, apparently a consort wasn't allowed to lose customers. He blamed her aging body, which hadn't been the same since "that trash," meaning me, had been born. Nobody wanted the company of a woman whose child was only a few years younger than he was.

Mother's contract permitted the two of us a small room barely large enough for one small bed upon which the two of us slept, and although I knew that if I hadn't existed she may have lived a more prosperous life and never have had to resort to prostitution she never resented me. I was her "precious Rivaille," and she just wanted to make me happy, as I wanted to make her happy. We just needed each other and with that alone we could make it.

That dream ended one night when soldiers invaded the brothel one night, declaring everyone employed there guilty of treason and dragged them to the square for their meeting with Madame Guillotine. It was the last time I cried, seeing my mother hauled away as if she was a criminal caused something inside me to break and I leapt on one of the soldiers, screaming like a banshee. Two other men had to pull me off the wounded male and sentenced me to death as well; the son of a prostitute was lucky to not been killed at birth, they grinned me as I snarled in their ugly faces.

I resisted my captors the entire time and they punched me several times to encourage my "cooperation" as they dragged me up the steps to my death. With my hands now bound behind my back uncomfortably, I was unable to defend myself as I stared out at the gathered crowd. I could only guess just what I looked like to that sea of onlookers, a teenager beaten, bloody, and dressed in rags. As a soldier began pushing me towards the murderous contraption, I felt a twinge of something unfamiliar deep inside me and the man began screaming.

The cries spread, surrounding me in a sea of shrieking voices as I saw blue flames engulfing the citizens who had showed up to watch today's executions, burning their skin, hair, even their bones until all that was left was a glowing blaze of ash and the smell of charred flesh. Just what had happened here?

"Sorcery..." a voice rasped out from behind me and I spun around to find one of the soldiers had barely survived the mysterious fire. One side of his cruel face blackened, his clothes singed, and now had his sword drawn, dark eyes glaring at me.

"W-what?" I stammered, taking several careful steps backwards, not even noticing my hands were free until I slipped and landed flat on my back painfully.

"You murderer! What did you do?" He charged towards me, the gleaming silver blade landed in my chest and I screamed at the pain, sharp and unlike anything I'd ever felt before. Surprisingly I found myself able to kick the man off me and wrench the sword out, panting at the strain on my body yet fully aware of everything around me. I was even able to tell that the stab wound was slowly closing up, the blood flow stopping as the seconds ticked by, earning another glare from my opponent.

"A powerful mage, disguised as a prostitute's son; just who are you boy?" He snarled and lunged once more, forcing my neck underneath the sharp blade of Madame Guillotine and smiling as he let it fall. My last thoughts before decapitation were of my poor mother, had I killed her? Had she died on this block before I had and I was just too distracted to notice? Was all of this my-

I woke with a yell, clawing at my throat; I could still feel the pain as my head had severed from its body, hear the slice of the guillotine as that life, my mortal life, ended. I hated that dream with a passion; it reminded me of how weak I had been, unable to save the one person who mattered to me. I'd woken up a week after that incident with my head fully attached on a boat headed towards London, alone and afraid.

"Hey sleepyhead," Hanji stood above me and I glared at them, why were they here? I'd set up spells to keep them and everyone else out of my apartment unless they had my permission. "Feeling better?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I snapped at her before coughing, my throat raw and painful.

"You don't remember what happened?" They looked at me with a pitying stare and I would have punched their stupid face if my limbs hadn't felt too heavy to lift. "You were given gorgon's blood, got it now? You came close to being captured and taken back to your uncle, if Eren hadn't been there-"

This caught my attention. Apparently, the poison addled my memory, and if what Hanji said was true... "Eren? Why is he involved in this?"

The scientist looked bashful and I knew that they had been involved somehow. "Hanji," I growled, glaring at them once more. "Why is my student caught up in this mess?"

"Well, I didn't know you'd been poisoned, we just thought you were sick so I got a card for you, your students signed it, and when Eren went to deliver it those bastards who poisoned you showed up. You ended up dragging him down five blocks and giving him one of your disguise pills before passing out on the sidewalk." They sighed and looked at me as though I were one of her pets that had gotten hurt.

"So now that brat's entangled in this shit? Just fucking great, like things weren't already hard enough without having to tote around a mundane kid. This is a fucking nightmare." I struggled to sit up and that idiot helped me, putting pillows behind my back so I could stay upright in my weak state before helping me drink a glass of water. At least my throat didn't feel like a desert anymore.

Hanji rolled their eyes and sat down on the bed next to me and it was only then that I noticed my surroundings. I was in a hotel room with mustard yellow wallpaper and a crimson carpet; two king-sized beds lay inside it along with a desk and armchairs. It was nicer a place than I expected to find myself in after being poisoned and having to go on the run again. No doubt, I'd have to thank Erwin for such luxuries, despite how I loathed depending on him he knew what he was doing when it came to my likes and dislikes.

Something shifted in the bed next to mine and I glanced over to see Eren turning over in his sleep, looking weirdly feminine for some reason. Just what had happened when I'd been in my poisoned state?

"You gave him the female disguise pill, it unnerved him quite a bit when it first happened, and fortunately it's wearing off now," Hanji seemed to read my mind and it made me wonder for the hundredth time if they could actually do that with their magic. "You're back to being a shorty by the way, I guess either the blood made its effectiveness less potent or you're building an intolerance to the stuff." I looked down at my body to see they were right, and I suspected the latter was the reason behind this regression to my true appearance. I had taken the stuff nearly every day, sometimes more than once a day, in order to keep those bastards off my scent for the past three years; it had to lose its effectiveness eventually.

"Hopefully it's just the orange one, that's the aging one right? You don't take the other ones much anymore so they should still work properly." They looked over at the bed where Eren slept before walking over to him. "He's waking up; I think he slept as badly as you did. Please don't pretend to sleep or I'll dump a bucket of grape juice on you."

"Grape juice? Not water?"

"Grape juice makes a much bigger mess." The scientist grins evilly at me before turning back to our student. "Eren, Eren honey wake up."

The kid jolted upright, sweat coating his still very girly face, gasping for breath. He looked down at his chest and rather than being surprised to see he still had breasts he patted his stomach as though he thought there should be something other than flesh there.

"You okay brat? You look like shit." I spoke to him indifferently, never having really paid much attention to the brunet in my classes with him other than to notice he slept some days or fought with one of his other classmates, Kirstein I think, and I had to send the pair to see Erwin. He glanced over at me and nearly jumped out of the bed before swiveling his head around the room, clearly unsure of where he was.

"We're in a hotel, idiot. Do you remember anything about what happened earlier?" I snapped, not having the patience to deal with stupidity right now.

"Now, now Levi; you're not allowed to be mean to Eren when you don't remember what happened at all. He probably knows more than you do right now." They snigger and I glare at the lunatic.

"W-what?" Eren looks positively terrified and it was probably for good reason; if someone had gone through that kind of shit and not been even a little bit scared by it I'd probably think they weren't mentally stable.

"You look awful kid." I told the brat again, not worrying about being delicate or anything. "Are you going to be alright?"

"Y-yeah," he replied before staring at me, as if just noticing my appearance was different from what he was used to seeing. His eyes traveled up and down my slumped form in a manner that was extremely disturbing to say the least.

"What? You look like you're trying to shit." I was getting more irritated with this idiotic behavior by the second

"Are you really my history teacher?" He blurted out, scrunching up his eyes because apparently such a simple question was painful for him.

"Yeah, this is my actual appearance though; I've been taking those disguise pills for years because it's hard to get a decent job looking like an eighteen year-old," I sighed before continuing. "Also I've been in hiding for the past century and changing my appearance helped me avoid being found up until now. Do you have any other stupid questions you need to ask me?"

"Why are you a history teacher if people are after you weren't there better jobs available?" Eren's bright eyes were nervously darting around the hotel room as he avoided looking at me for some bizarre reason.

Rolling my eyes, I answered him. "First: Hanji, Erwin, and several other of my colleges work at that freak show you call a school so it made sense to get a job there rather than someplace without any allies nearby. Second: I've been alive nearly two and a half centuries, it makes sense to teach what I know when I've lived through that shit. Third: because I fucking can okay?"

He nodded, looking very timid. I probably was destroying whatever image he'd conjured up of me with every word out of my mouth. I vaguely recalled how he'd behaved outside my apartment as if it had been a dream, how nervous he'd been. It just hit me that he'd developed some delusion that he thought better of me than I probably deserved, who knew what Hanji told people about me. Whatever, he knew the truth now.

"I'm guessing you have bigger questions than simply what I teach though..." I bit the inside of my cheek, secretly dreading what was to come; I hated talking about my past, especially after just having that awful dream again. It seemed however that there was no other option than to tell him a good deal of what I'd lived through if I was going to keep this brat alive now that he knew my true nature. It seemed as though he was going to be involved in this mess no matter what he or I wanted after that asshole's goons had seen him run away with me.

Eren nodded and I clenched my hands into fists at my sides, staring at him dully and preparing myself for what was to come.

"Ask away."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a chapter in Levi's pov. Hopefully it's good. This is the most original fanfiction I've posted so I'm a bit nervous about how good it is...
> 
> How immortality works in this story is that there are different types, Levi, Hanji, and Erwin are all complete immortals meaning they can't age and their wounds heal very quickly. Poison will not kill them, but it does make them very sick depending on the type, hence why it was given to Levi so people could kidnap him.
> 
> More details about immortality will be discussed in later chapters.
> 
> For anyone who might be interested the disguise pills come in different colors for different disguises. Blue is male, pink female, orange ages, green makes people younger. There are other colors that may be talked about in the future but that's all you need to know for now.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, I hope you find this fic interesting.


	3. Lesson Three

here's nothing really like waking up in a hotel room after having punched a stranger, sprinted what felt like a mile, and being turned into a girl. It is the best fucking feeling ever and everyone should try it; I guarantee you will not regret such a decision ever.

My head throbbed as I struggled to process what Mr. A, or Levi since apparently now I had the privilege of knowing the mysterious man's name, was telling me. He'd been alive for centuries but still looked like a teenager? Had he been hiding from those people who'd poisoned him for so long, even taking those weird pills so they wouldn't catch him? Just who was this guy and what had I gotten myself into now?

"Mr. Smith mentioned something about you being immortal, is this true?" I decided to get the more important questions out of the way first, running a hand through my hair, which was still long when compared to my usual cut.

The raven nodded, his face expressionless. "I was born in France back during the seventeen hundreds, right around when the French Revolution happened; I became immortal when I was eighteen though."

"You became immortal? You weren't immortal to begin with?"

"No, and I'm glad for that," He snorted in irritation. "Immortals fall into different categories but most of them live normal lives up until they die for the first time, then their immortality is triggered like flicking a switch. Eyebrows, glasses, and I are all complete immortals which means we don't age naturally and nothing can really kill us; weapons, poisons, fire, drowning, none of it will do any permanent damage."

"You got poisoned and it seemed to really affect you though." As much as I didn't want to get any closer to this dangerous world I wanted to learn more, much more about that which I had thought impossible.

"That poison was special, it was actually gorgon's blood," I stared at him blankly and he sighed. "Clearly you didn't pay attention to my class on Greek mythology, or perhaps you didn't pay attention to any of my classes. Gorgons are monsters, the most famous of them was Medusa and if you don't know who she is you're a moron. Anyway, blood from the right side of a gorgon can heal any wound, supposedly even bring back the dead but I've seen no proof of that. The left side is deadly poison, and despite being immortal, that stuff is so strong that it can make us very sick. Got it?"

I nodded although most of it hadn't made much sense, I vaguely remembered Armin trying to make me read these books about Greek mythology, some series about a guy named Peter Johnson or something like that. I'd never actually bothered to look into the series though, maybe I should do that now.

"Can I... Would you get mad at me if I asked who those people were?" Now I was treading into dangerous territory, I could feel the atmosphere in the room get heavier after I'd asked the question.

Mx. Zoe looked at Mr. A... Levi, with a concerned expression on their face. "I can answer if you don't want-" He cut them off before they could finish speaking.

"I can do this Hanji, just because I'm younger than you are doesn't mean you have to baby me constantly." He glared at my biology teacher and they only laughed.

"You're my precious Wevi baby, of course I'm gonna protect you."

The raven sighed and stared at me again. "After I died for the first time, which was by guillotine so you don't have to ask, I woke up on a boat travelling to London, tied up in the cargo section of the ship. I sat there for hours until someone found me and brought me up to see the captain, claiming that they knew nothing of how I'd gotten there and telling me that he would make everything better. They lied, it had been their captain's idea all along to bring me onboard and everyone knew it except me."

I stared at my former teacher, what I was hearing sounded impossible, but it had to be true, didn't it?

"The captain had known what I was all along; the soldier who had 'killed' me was the one to inform him of my existence. Apparently, that creep was interested in immortals and had told people he could trust in the military about them, he promised them money if they could give him any immortals they found, which is why I landed on that ship in the first place. The captain took a liking to me, possibly because I'd been so young at the time, and he took me under his wing immediately."

"I became a member of that man's gang without knowing what it meant to fully join their ranks. I'd fallen in with bad people, but because of how I'd died... Because of it the captain was able to manipulate me like a puppet, with him pulling all the strings. They taught me that because I was a complete immortal the rest of the world would resent me for what I was; that the only safe place for me was with him and his followers. For the first year I was treated well by everyone, but once my initiation was complete things changed completely."

I could see that this was a difficult topic and I didn't want to make him talk about it if he didn't want to.

"The captain now treated me like his nephew, and to me he was my uncle, even now he still holds that position despite running from him for so long. To make things brief, I realized just what I'd gotten myself into after some time and I asked to leave the gang. My uncle didn't like this since I knew too much about what he and his men were doing and tried to force me to stay; but I have always been the strongest one in that group and I managed to escape. Since that day he's been hunting for me, and even though he'll never be able to kill me he knows there are other ways to keep me from talking about just what horrible things he does."

"Sir you don't-" I started to say he didn't have to continue but he cut me off midsentence.

"Hanji found me hiding in Belgium during around the year 1850, they knew what I was instantly even though I'd been working as a servant for three years and none of the villagers had noticed anything unusual about me. They then introduced Erwin and the others to me and I've been their ally since, they've protected such an awful thing like me time after time even though I don't deserve such treatment. Hanji even made those disguise pills somehow, since it's much easier to use one of those than maintain a spell's control over an extended period of time."

For the first time the teen looked worn out, somehow the decades he'd lived through were showing in his face and aging him by the mere memory of what he'd done.

"Um, sir; Why am I involved in all of this?" I had to ask, I still didn't know how this affected me.

Mx. Zoe opened their mouth to speak but before they could say a word a knock sounded on the hotel room's door and they called out "What's the password?"

I heard a sigh from the other side of the door and Mr. Smith's voice answered in a dejected tone.

"For the last time Hanji the password is a riddle, remember?"

"Oh yeah!" They giggled before asking the door another question. "When light I'm dark, when darkest I'm gone. When gone for good so are you, what am I?"

"A shadow, and it's nice to see you've been reading more of Avi's books, he's a nice author." Mx. Zoe bounced off the bed and opened the door to let Mr. Smith inside, several bags of groceries in his hands. Upon seeing me awake his wide face broke into a grin. "Ah, Eren, I'm glad to see you up already."

"H-hello Mr. Smith; how are you?" Habit forced me to greet him properly despite the absurd situation we were in now. Immortal or not this man was still the principal of my school and I had to treat him with respect as my mother had taught me.

"I'm well, thank you for asking," he spoke while smiling, which was unnerving to say the least. "Would you mind if I asked you how you are doing? I understand you've gone through quite the ordeal and it's only reasonable to assume you have many questions."

"I'm alright sir, a bit confused but that's all; Mr. A was in the middle of explaining things to me when you arrived."

Mr. Smith held up one of the bags he was holding as though he thought I might not have seen it. "While you were sleeping I went out and bought some things you might need; food, medicine, a toothbrush, and some other things. Are you hungry?"

I hadn't noticed just how empty my stomach was until he'd brought it up, and then I was starving; it felt as though I hadn't eaten in months. Nodding I replied gratefully. "Yes sir, thank you very much."

He pulled out a container of muffins and some juice boxes, which wasn't what I expected such a professional-looking man to purchase in the slightest. Mx. Zoe seemed delighted however and snatched a box of grape juice eagerly, making a point of waving it in Mr. A's face before poking a straw into the cardboard and slurping down the contents greedily.

"Hanji you pig, you don't need that junk remember? You don't even need to eat or drink, why would you take it from Eren who actually requires sustenance to stay alive?"

Mx. Zoe pouted but continued to drink down the juice until the box was empty and they threw it into the trashcan. "I can still enjoy this stuff Levi, why are you so insistent on depriving me of my eternal life's simple pleasures?"

Mr. Smith cut in before the two teachers could actually start seriously fighting. "As Levi pointed out we don't actually need food or water to stay alive so most immortals don't actually see a point in eating or drinking anything. However we can digest food and alcohol does have a minimal effect on us so some of us still bother with the habits, like Hanji here, and Levi occasionally enjoys drinking enough for an entire army in order to actually get drunk."

"Erwin!" Mr. A seemed outraged to have something so silly made known to me. "Does that even matter right now?"

"It's an interesting fact I thought Eren might benefit from learning about. That's all." The blonde-haired woman grinned at his friend before returning his attention to me. "What has Levi neglected to tell you?"

"Well, he was just about to tell me how I fit into all of this immortals business," I avoided looking at anyone, preferring to force my eyes to gaze upon my own hands. "I still don't fully understand what's going to happen to me now."

Mr. Smith sighed before turning around the plush armchair so it faced the rest of the room and dropping down into it. "Well Eren, Levi told you about his uncle, right?" I nodded. "Those people you ran into outside Levi's apartment work for him and wanted to capture Levi to bring him back to his uncle. You interfered in this and actually had the gall to punch Miss Leonhart in the face, which they will no doubt report to their master; you will be assumed to be working with Levi and they will want to get their hands on you as well."

I tried to explain my actions but he cut me off before I could say anything. "It doesn't matter to them that you knew nothing about this world when you acted earlier, they just care about results and to them kidnapping you or doing anything to you is a possible way to bring their target out into the open again. You aren't safe anymore, and for that reason we had to take you with us so we can protect you. Fortunately for you they don't know your name yet so the chance of them targeting your friends or family is very slim, but you need to be with us now so you can stay safe, understand?"

I didn't understand at all. What did they mean I had to stay with them now? I wasn't safe? How could punching some horrible person land me in so much trouble?

"Does this mean I can't go back to school?" I managed to mutter, my eyesight blurring with tears.

Mx. Zoe spoke up now. "Sadly yes, you can't go back to your house or your school for a while now, not until whoever's watching you goes away or the threat surrounding Levi dies down. I'm sorry Eren, but you're going to have to forget all about your old life for a while if you want the people you care about, including yourself hopefully, to stay alive."

Tears leaked down my cheek from just one eye, for some reason only my left eye had the ability to cry, and my throat felt swollen. "What do you mean?"

This time the person to talk was none other than the very man who'd gotten me into this mess in the first place. "Eren, you're going to be missing for a while; unless you want to find yourself in a coffin any time soon."

"Erwin and I will be going back to school since it'd be too suspicious if all three of us resigned around the time you disappeared, and you and Levi will go into hiding along with some of our friends. Between the five of them they'll keep you safe until everything's all over, I swear."

"You guys are all immortal though, am I just supposed to run from people I've never even met until I die? This isn't fair!" My voice rose without my knowledge and I glared at everyone in the room.

"Life isn't fair kid, not even an eternal life. None of us want to force you to deal with our shit, not even me, but the only other option is letting you die and we want that even less." To my surprise, Mr. A looked remorseful for once; he stared at me with a somewhat sad look on his face and I felt myself break in that moment.

"Eren..." Mx. Zoe started to say something but the raven rising to his feet unsteadily made them stop and stare as he walked the few steps to my bed before collapsing onto it. He placed an arm around my shoulder and pulled me towards him, letting me cry into his neck with a disgusted look on his face.

"I'll protect you kid. I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this was a chapter full of answering questions, and yet it probably didn't answer enough. Sorry about that but I thought that this was enough for this chapter.
> 
> Did anyone get the book references I made? The first was to the awesome "Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus" series by Rick Riordan, which is where I got the idea for gorgon's blood from in the first place. The second was with the riddle I took from a book called "Bright Shadows" by Avi, as Erwin said. It's a very creative book and I just love that riddle so much. I love riddles in general.
> 
> Believe it or not the hardest thing in this chapter was figuring out who went with Eren and Levi, because originally Hanji and Erwin were going to accompany them but I thought it might be a bit hard to believe due to ther reasons Hanji gave. I spent the last few days thinking it over while at work.. my coworkers did get a bit confused as to why I was spacing out while making lattes though.
> 
> Thank you to all the people reading this, especially those who commented on AO3, it really helps me to know that you guys like this story.


	4. Lesson Four

Damn, I was in for it now; this kid was certainly going to be the death of me and I'd only had to babysit him for a day. Erwin and Hanji were going to pay for making me deal with this by myself since the others who were supposed to help me look after Eren wouldn't arrive until the weekend, a whole three days from now. They'd agreed to accompany us to the temporary hideout but no farther.

My pocket vibrated and I pulled out a cell phone, several years from being the latest model, hell, it still flipped open. I didn't use it much because there were magical ways of staying in contact with people but Erwin had forbidden me from using any type of magic whatsoever until they moved the brat and I to a safer location. After there were ways for those bastards looking for me to track magical energies and being found by anyone working for my uncle was the last thing I wanted to happen.

Eren stirred next to me, finally waking up, and by doing so he brought my attention back to the sleek black car we both sat in and just what was going to happen next. Hanji had gone out and bought the two of us several changes of clothes, pajamas, a travel set of toiletries, anything they thought we might need until we managed to find a hideout we deemed "safe" for the two of us fugitives.

I prayed it wouldn't take long because memories of the last time someone had forced me to camp out in a forest due to not having a place with a roof to stay in threatened to unbury themselves from the chest in which I'd locked them. No, never again would I let the harm of innocents occur just because they had the misfortune to become involved with my own troubles.

"Any idea where we are?" Eren turned his blue-green eyes towards me in interest, clearly thinking I knew more than I did. The circles under those eyes told me just how tired the kid was and I felt bad for getting him in this mess.

"No clue, there's a lot of places I've never been to. In addition, many places I've visited too long ago for me to recognize them now, or passed through very briefly. Chances are wherever the hell we are now falls into one of those categories."

"It looks nice..." The kid gazed back out the window and I did the same; we were traveling down an older-looking street lined with brick buildings. I spotted several quaint-looking cafes, a clothing shop, even an art gallery. I leaned over the back of the driver's seat and muttered to Erwin. "Where are we?"

"Canada!" Hanji grinned at me, forcing my face into a scowl.

"Really? Canada?" I asked them, not daring to believe my ears were telling the truth.

"Sorry Levi, Hanji was driving at first so they chose where we were heading. If you want to you can pick where in Canada to stay feel free."

"Pull over, I need to stretch my legs, plus I think the brat has to go crap or something." I needed to take a shit as well but I sure wasn't going to admit it with those freaks in earshot. Once the car had stopped I climbed out of it and began walking as far away from the parked vehicle as possible, trying to distance myself from the mess I was in. I chewed a pink disguise pill and grimaced at the uncomfortable burning sensation that flooded my veins as my body changed into that of a woman's. Whatever, at least nobody would recognize me like this.

My feet were now in low heels, an unexpected addition to my wardrobe but those damn pills didn't let me control my new appearance whatsoever and I struggled to stay upright as I examined my new form in a shop window. My black hair, shaved on the sides, remained the same; but the rest of it was longer and combed over into a longhaired undercut. It didn't look half-bad on me either and I flipped the locks over my shoulder and glanced down at the rest of myself.

A gray shirt hugged my chest, that was fine with me, and I had small breasts, which were also okay with me, I didn't need people gawking at my chest when I was trying to avoid attention. A black leather jacket protected me from the cold of mid-February, since the dark gray miniskirt and black leggings weren't doing much in that sense. Finishing the outfit was a pair of black combat boots, black biking gloves, several piercings in both ears and my lip, and, to my surprise, makeup. Man, Hanji really did a fantastic job with those pills; I looked fucking fantastic.

Now that I was fairly certain nobody would recognize me I felt more comfortable walking around the unfamiliar streets, desperate to get away from everything that had been going on in the past few days. Spotting a pack of cigarettes hanging halfway out of a man's pocket and I used the pickpocketing skills I'd learned centuries ago to swipe it. I succeeded in pulling one free of the cardboard container and lighting it in one snap of my fingers just as the sky crackled above me and it began to pour.

"Just my fucking luck," I sighed and inhaled deeply, the smoke filling my lungs in a familiar way I hated to admit I'd missed. Hanji had made me stop smoking when I'd started at that shitty school but now I needed that familiar relief cigarettes gave me after all I had to deal with. Ducking under an awning to take cover from the rain I tried to shed some of the stress that clung to me, it didn't work thanks to the familiar hand that landed on my shoulder a few seconds later.

"What do you want brat?" Of course it was Eren, it just had to be him to have followed me and seen me in this disguise. Maybe I should have changed into a child, no, if that happened I wouldn't be able to smoke.

"I was worried about you." He panted; apparently the strain of following me was too much for him.

My eyebrows raised almost against my will as I stared at his red face. "What possible reason would you have to be worried about me?"

He laughed. "Well, you are wanted, right? You have people hunting you down. I thought someone should go after you."

"You wanted to be my bodyguard?" I snorted. "No offense kid, I think you would be in more danger than me in that situation."

"Oh..." Eren's eyes looked sad as the reality of the situation we were in, just how little he would be able to help me or protect himself.

Another puff, I focused on breathing. "I already said I'd protect you, remember brat? Don't worry about me; I'm more than enough for those monsters."

The kid rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets. He wore a baggy green sweatshirt from some tourist shop nearby; it still had the tag on it, some cargo pants, and soggy sneakers. Combining the clothing with his messy brown hair that desperately needed a haircut and the scruff on his chin from not shaving the past few days he looked homeless, not at all like someone capable of protecting me.

"My name is Eren, you taught me for over a semester. Do you have some inability to call me by my name?" His voice was bitter, but I ignored it because there was no need to give into such childish behavior.

"I call you a brat because you act like one. In all my time knowing you I have yet to see you act like an adult, therefore I see no reason to call you anything else. Got it brat?"

"You are insufferable! I don't know why I'm putting up with this!" Eren threw his hands up in the air and stormed off back into the rain, leaving me alone for the first time in what felt like ages. It was wonderful.

"Levi!" Of course Hanji was here now; I couldn't have a moment to myself. Also, why was everyone recognizing me? "Where's Eren?"

"He threw a tantrum and left." I inhaled deeply from the cigarette and blew the smoke in their face, causing them to snatch the cancer-stick from my hand and grind it under their shoe.

"What the hell Levi! He's in danger! Did you really just let him wander off when those mages your uncle sent are after him? Did it even enter that thick skull of yours just what might happen to the poor kid if Annie gets her hands on him after what he did to her? She won't hesitate to kill him!"

I sighed, stuffing my hands in my jacket pockets before thinking up the words for a tracking spell. Before I could say a single word of it, a hand pressed itself to my mouth, a disgusting, sticky hand belonging to one person.

"What the hell Hanji?" I demanded, throwing them away from me and wiping my face off.

"No magic! They can track magic remember? Just what has gotten into you?" They stomped their feet and glared at me, pushing me out from under the awning. "Go after him now!"

I sighed and trudged off, kicking up puddles as I turned up the collar of my jacket to offer some protection. "That brat better appreciate this shit."

My clothing and hair was drenched by the time I found the kid, he'd managed to find the only alley in the entire town to have people corner him in, as if he attracted bad luck. I stomped towards him, and his attackers, pulling wet hair off my neck and wringing it out despite the rain that still insisted on falling. My wet footsteps drew everyone's attention and I was unsurprised to see it was Leonhart, Hoover, and Braun that had been the ones to locate Eren, they must have put some kind of tracking spell on him and nobody had bothered to check.

"Who are you?" Leonhart glared at me, which I found oddly nice because she didn't recognize me.

"He's mine." Was my only response, which I followed up with by crossing my arms defiantly across my chest. "I bought him, you can't have him."

"You bought him?" She asked; and her voice that was usually so calm now held a note of curiosity to it.

"Yeah, I bought him for the night but he chickened out and ran, what are you doing with him? He's taken tonight." I had no idea what I was doing, pretending Eren was my prostitute would hardly end well for me but it seemed to be working in this situation.

"I'm sorry, but will you lend him to me for a few minutes?" She smiled, a cold, disturbing smile that chilled my blood. "I'll return him to you in more or less the same condition."

Lies. She would kill him; I had to end this silly discussion now. Wriggling my fingers I felt the disguise wear off as the familiar sensation of magic filled my body. "I'm afraid I can't do that Ms. Leonhart, you see Eren belongs to me, I can't have anyone else dirtying him."

The girl's face twisted with rage, no doubt at how a simple spell had tricked her. "Ackerman!" She hissed, her body automatically readying itself for battle.

"That was my name last I checked, although I never gave you permission to use it. Step away from the boy and I won't hurt you too severely."

Braun and Hoover hadn't moved yet, and they wouldn't until commanded to, as was the way with all homunculi. Commands would force them to do unspeakable things and had powers beyond that of even beginner mages, but they had no free will of themselves and if their master was to die, or even become severely injured, they were useless. To my surprise, Leonhart stepped away from Eren, leaving him in a heap on the ground as she continued glaring at me.

"This is a warning Ackerman. Continue to run and we will hunt down everyone you care about, then you."

I laughed, almost against my will.

"Just try it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was annoying to write, mostly because of distractions and massive allergies. I wrote it though, hopefully it's good.
> 
> Some pics for Levi's hairstyle when he's a girl are here http://everydayereri.tumblr.com/post/128447340390/some-pics-for-an-idea-what-fem-levis-hair-looks


	5. Study Hall

The tile looked clean enough to me but apparently the two other times I'd scrubbed the floor hadn't been enough and I had to redo everything once more. My hands ached from holding the scrub brush for so long and I just wanted to stop, the smell of cleaner was making me nauseated, and I'd been working for hours. Throwing the brush back into the bucket I stood up and stretched, trying to work the stiffness out of my limbs from staying hunched over for so long.

I looked around the small kitchen of our rented apartment, it was barely large enough to hold a fridge and a stove, it didn't even have a dishwasher but that seemed fine to my former teacher. Levi and I had moved in the day before and according to him, the people guarding us would arrive today so the place had to be spotless. Sighing as I made my way to the lone bathroom where the raven had started cleaning my thoughts drifted back to yesterday's events.  
-_-_-

The sight before me was one I thought could only be seen in books or movies; however, I could feel the pain that filled my whole body like fire, telling me everything was real. The forming bruises from where someone threw me against the wall, my split lip the woman had given me as "payback," my possibly broken ribs from where the huge men had kicked me mercilessly. The cool night air stung as it touched my face and I shuddered involuntarily, did I have a broken nose as well?

To my surprise, it was Mr. A, no, Levi who moved first, he'd gone into a fighting stance before launching himself at the short blonde-haired woman. He slammed his palm into her stomach in an attack that launched her back into a row of trashcans. Before she had a chance to move he yanked me to my feet and dragged out of the alley, so fast it felt like my shoulder had been dislocated. As we ran, every step sent jolts of pain through my body and I couldn't help but wince.

After a block or so, he pulled me into a small convenience store, past all the shelves, into the bathroom. It was small, about the size of a closet, and smelled foul but I couldn't help but slump against the wall, panting from running so fast.

"Are you hurt?" To my surprise Mr. A sounded concerned for me, even if a layer of annoyance covered it. He'd distanced himself from me in the tiny room, covering his face with the collar of his black turtleneck so he didn't have to breathe in the disgusting bathroom air.

I shook my head, causing my ears to ring, and struggled to stand once more. I would have fallen over had my former teacher not rushed over and slung one of my arms over his shoulder. I wanted to protest, to say that someone of his size couldn't carry my weight, but his shoulders were surprisingly broad and under the fabric of the sweater he wore, I could feel hard muscle. My cheeks flushed and I tried to force down my embarrassment at having my old crush treat me like a child.

"Don't lie to me brat, I've been in too many fights to know that going up against those three is hardly something you could do without getting injured. If they hadn't left quietly I'd have been pretty messed up too."

"Eh?" I let out a sound of surprise, not expecting that anything could dare hurt this man after what I'd seen.

"Don't sound so shocked kid; what you've witnessed so far is nothing to look at. Real fights between mages have the aftermath appear in the papers, although the mundanes usually think it was a gas explosion or something. What reason would they have to believe such destruction was the work of people?"

"Mundanes?" I didn't understand the word at all.

"Well, you know how in Harry Potter the people who can't use magic are called Muggles?" He asked, and I nodded. "Fun fact, the word muggle was originally used by geocachers to describe people who weren't geocachers; the author just borrowed it for her series. Anyway, mundane is our version of muggles, most mages use it to describe 'normal people' who aren't immortals or mages."

I stared in surprise at the short man as he took a step forward and attempted to open the bathroom door without touching it. Reaching out my hand, I had nearly grasped the handle when Levi swatted it away. "Do you know how fucking filthy that thing is?"

I laughed; I couldn't help it. After everything that had happened to me in the last few days a dirty doorknob was the least of my problems. I tugged it open, ignoring more protests, and hobbled back into the store.  
_-_-_

When I opened the door the bathroom was empty, but clean. The tiles shone as if they were brand new, the sink gleamed, and the rugs looked like someone had bought them today.

"Oh... I didn't expect you to come in here." Levi's voice came from the shower, mixed in with the sound of running water. Had he actually decided to take a shower now?

"I- I'm sorry sir! I didn't mean to, I thought you were doing... Something else..." I trailed off lamely, blushing and looking at the toilet.

"You've got guts, walking in on me like this." He sounded amused, as though he'd expected this to happen. Meanwhile I didn't know what was going on, my face felt so hot and I could only spout gibberish.

"Oh well, since you're in here do you want to join me?"

Join him? In the shower? What nonsense was he talking about? Before I had a chance to respond the curtain opened and there he was, fully clothed and holding the handheld shower thingy at his side.

"Join me in cleaning the bathroom?" He asked grinning slyly and pushed back his damp hair, he hadn't avoided getting wet after all. Looking at my shocked and embarrassed face only cause him to laugh, nearly doubling over in amusement. "Geez, what did you think I was asking about? You really thought I'd let you shower with me?"

I muttered a response under my breath. "It would save us water." He opened his mouth to retort but the doorbell ringing saved me. "I'd better go get that." I smiled nervously before practically sprinting to see who was there.

That had been a mistake, after spending days with Levi, the man who used to be my teacher, and getting to know what he really acted like I'd found myself trying to get closer to him. It didn't help that I'd had a crush on his older appearance, or that he looked really, really hot as a teenager. I found his foul mouth and bad temper more likable in someone who looked my age, and I guess I felt a connection to him now that we were in the same mess, sort of.

No matter how much I started to like the guy though, I couldn't let it get any farther than friendship, with the situation surrounding us romantic feelings would only get in the way of surviving. He had looked fucking amazing with wet hair though.

When I peered out the peephole in the door I saw four normal-looking people waiting on the landing outside. I had reached for the doorknob when squashy footsteps sounded behind me and a wet hand pulled me backwards, my arms flailing weakly.

"Idiot! Did having the snot beat out of you the other day teach you nothing? Why would you open a door when you can't be certain of what's outside it!" He was angrier than I had seen him in days, which wasn't saying much; apparently I kept doing things that pissed him off.

"Sorry." I muttered as he shoved me aside and looked out the peephole as well.

"It looks like them, but it could easily be an illusion spell or something similar." Levi opened the door a crack, one hand held behind him, as if prepared to attack if necessary. The air around his fingers looked strange, like a heat haze or something. "Who are you?" He demanded of the strangers.

"Rivaille, it's us," A woman's voice answered, high pitched and delicate-sounding. "Auruo, Gunter, Erd, and I." Who was she, and who was Rivaille? Was that one of Levi's disguises?

"Fine, answer me this then. What is my favorite fictional character?" I was confused as to why he would ask someone such a bizarre question but I thought back to Hanji giving Erwin a riddle, confirming his identity. No doubt Levi was doing the same thing, checking to see if they'd know something so random to ensure it was really them.

"Twilight Sparkle." Came the response, and I had to resist laughing.

"Not even close." Surprisingly the raven was calm, despite possibly being under attack.

"It was a joke Rivaille, I know it's Malcolm Reynolds; man the way you freaked out when you found out Firefly was canceled-" The woman outside sounded even more amused than she had suggesting Levi was a brony, something I couldn't even picture being true.

"Stop talking shit and get in here before you say something even stupider than you already have. Firefly is the best show ever, your obsession with Supernatural cannot even compare to the love I have for that show."

"But Rivaille-"

"Silence, heathen; we can talk more inside." He opened the door wider and let the strangers inside, first being the girl who had spoken. She was short with reddish-blonde hair and a kind smile, her innocent appearance contrasting sharply with the taller man behind her, a frown on his face and his dirty blond hair in an undercut like Levi's. The other two men looked nicer; one of them had blonde hair in a short ponytail and some scruff on his chin while the other had tan skin and short dark hair.

"Dare I ask why you're soaking wet Lev?" The man with the ponytail grinned at the raven's disheveled appearance, only glancing in my direction when Levi turned to look at me.

"This idiot was going to let you guys in without checking your identities first; I had been in the middle of cleaning the bathroom and tripped on a bucket of water, didn't have time to dry off." He closed his eyes for a few seconds and a gust of warm air passed over him, drying his hair and clothes instantly.

The woman noticed me and the smile she wore was nearly blinding. "Oooh! Who's this cutie?" She demanded, running over to me and giving me a big hug.

"That's the brat we're looking after; hopefully with you guys here we'll be able to stop him from doing anything stupid."

"Hey!" I protested, not at all liking the way he described me. The woman stopped hugging me and I cleared my throat. "My name is Eren Yaeger, not brat. I've said this fifty times already."

"Aww, you're so cute!" The woman smiled again. "I'm Petra Ral, the Rivaille wannabe over there is Aurou, and behind him are Erd and Gunter. We've known Rivaille a long time, but I know that at least I'll get along with you just fine."

"Um, Miss Ral?" I'd suddenly become shy.

"Oh sweetie, you don't have to call me that; Petra works just fine." Another smile followed this.

"Um, well then, Petra... Why do you call him Rivaille?" I wasn't sure if this was too personal of a question but I'd already asked it, there was no going back.

"Well, I'm not sure if I should be the one to answer that..." She glanced at Levi, as did I, and we both saw that his face had become stony. I'd gone too far, we all knew it.

"I call you brat because you act like a child, stop being immature and just maybe I'll respect you more." With that, he left the room, presumably to finish cleaning the shower once more. I thought I'd started to get closer to him, but maybe I never would be able to do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about not updating this sooner, I've been juggling stuff like work and a street fair I'm one of the major characters in that's next week. Plus this chapter isn't very interesting, sorry about that.
> 
> Also it's worth noting with the thing about Levi's favorite character, I picked Mal because I thought Levi might like him, having seen only one episode of firefly a while ago and keeping forgetting to watch more I'm not making a big deal over it. Levi's a browncoat, whatever. Also Twilight Sparkle would probably be his favorite pony, I just thought it would be a fun thing to add. Anyway, not saying one series is better than any other, that's all.
> 
> If anyone thought the shower scene seemed familiar it's because I stole it from Toradora. Not ashamed to say it.
> 
> Hopefully I can get into the interesting stuff fast, then the plot will really pick up speed.
> 
> Thanks to all my readers and people who like this!


	6. Lesson Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I know nobody likes hearing "my life has been shit" but that's what happened. I finally had a day where I actually felt good and finished this chapter, hope it was worth the wait and I'm sorry if it wasn't.

"Please tell me you've found something new." The words greeted me as I entered the room, spoken in a desperate tone by a black-haired girl in a red scarf.

"If breakfast counts as 'something new' then yes," I plopped the bag of doughnuts on the coffee table in front of where she sat, slumped in a chair with a laptop perched on her lap. "C'mon Mikasa, when's the last time you ate something?" A sour smell reached my nose as I peered at the laptop's screen. "Or showered?"

"Eren's been missing for a week, who knows what might have happened to him. I need to keep looking, I just... I can't lose him too." Mikasa's voice cracked as she fished a jelly doughnut from the bag and spilled powdered sugar all over her shirt.

"Mikasa..." I understood some of what she felt, I really did. Eren was my best friend and the knowledge that someone could have kidnapped or killed him made me want to vomit. "Working yourself to death isn't going to do anything to help Eren, you won't find him if you end up in the hospital because you keep forgetting to eat."

"Armin," Her voice was somber as she met my gaze, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. It hurt to see Mikasa like this; she was so strong and never showed just what she was feeling for some unknown reason. "He's the only family I have left."

I sighed and sat on the arm of her chair before taking the laptop from her, noting how the battery would die in minutes anyway, having gotten unplugged somehow. "Mikasa I'm not giving this back to you until you eat a decent meal, take a shower, and sleep for at least six hours." She glared at me and I pretended not to see it. "Eren wouldn't want you to do this to yourself because of him, say we do find him and he learns you stopped eating while he was gone, he would blame himself."

The only response I received was another glare, one that reminded me so much of Eren it was like they were actually related rather than merely adopted siblings. "Fine." She grumbled, getting to her feet and storming away as if I had asked her to kick a puppy rather than get some rest.

"So stubborn," I muttered, sliding down into the chair she had vacated and plugging the laptop back in so I could do some research of my own. Something was bothering me about this mess, Eren had gone missing, but that wasn't all that happened. I remembered him volunteering to do something after school the day he vanished, but Mikasa and I couldn't remember what it had been, and nobody I asked knew anything.

When I'd looked at my journal, I kept a record of the day's events in case it might be useful, like now for instance, to see if I'd written anything that could give me a clue to what happened... Well I can't explain it, but I'd mentioned a teacher named Mr. A, apparently he taught history at our school but I swear I'd never heard of him. History had always been taught by Mr. Zacharias, or so I thought. A quick google search didn't reveal anything about helpful since the name Mr. A was too vague, even when I added details the journal held to the description. If this "short, grumpy, black-haired man" existed then the world was doing its best to hide him from us.

I sighed and pulled a doughnut from the bag, eating with one hand and checking the local police reports to see if there was anything that could help me either find where Eren had gone, or who "Mr. A" was. One report caught my eye; a break-in took place in an apartment building, but nobody had been hurt, and the apartment in question had been empty. There had been no witnesses, and the camera footage during that time of the crime had been erased; the only evidence that anything had happened was the apartment door had been ripped off its hinges.

Cops were baffled as to how someone could actually pull a door from the frame, but upon examining the hinges, it was revealed that they'd broken from strain. The whole thing was so absurd I didn't know what to think of it, so instead I hacked into the footage for the security cameras in a two-mile radius from the apartment.

Then I nearly dropped the laptop.

-_-_-_

"He's cute, isn't he," Petra leaned against the counter clutching a cup of coffee in her hands. "Eren, I mean. Although I don't know who else you might have thought I was talking about."

I snorted and went back to work on dinner, the apartment I'd been living in for the past two years had lacked a kitchen I felt comfortable with making big meals in. This place was much better; the kitchen could easily fit everyone, rather than being too crowded if three people stood inside it, and the urge to make something fancy was too strong. Early on in my immortal years, I'd discovered I had a love for cooking and all the time in the world to perfect my skills.

It turned out that nobody in my uncle's gang knew how to make anything fancy and encouraged me to learn all I could on the subject; after I left the meals must have been awful. While I was on the run I'd taken jobs in restaurants for short amounts of time, picking up new techniques and styles of cooking that hadn't been around when I'd first started out. Erwin's group was rich so he could actually afford a chef, but after seeing what I could do he asked me to make stuff for events several times, rather than having to pay anyone. I didn't mind, staying in the kitchen meant I could avoid actually attending said events.

Now that I had access to a good kitchen and decent ingredients, I felt a century younger. Even so, I held back from going all out, as I'd done in the past, and decided on making merely a sage and apple pork tenderloin, with sides of risotto and steamed broccoli. I'd made five-course meals before so something as simple as this made talking with Petra easy, although I didn't think much of her choice of conversation.

"Excuse me?" I dared to ask, slicing the apples into thin rings.

"Oh, come on Rivaille! How long have we known each other? Fifty years? You have to have known I'm into the exotic look." Oh, she hadn't meant to question my interest in the kid, her just been making a comment about his appearance. I couldn't lie that his eyes were beautiful, a green like emeralds, but they changed to blue in sunlight in a way that made me suspect magic was involved.

Unfortunately for Eren I had been aware of his interest in me from the beginning, his apparent crush on my older self, and I'd ignored it like the good teacher I'd been. He'd surprised me though, and even though my memories from when I'd been poisoned were fuzzy at best, I still remembered him punching Leonhart in the face, and it made me grateful he'd been there.

Having had days to think the situation over I did feel somewhat guilty at having dragged him into this world of magic and death, but I noticed Eren looked at me differently now. His gaze was no longer awestruck or wistful, maybe because he now knew my true personality, but whatever it was I was thankful for it. Taking care of a child was hard enough without him eye-fucking me whenever he had the chance.

"Once again, your fascination in younger men is something I'd prefer not to discuss while I still breathe." I dumped the apple slices on top of the pork and practically threw it into the oven, wishing for a change in subject.

Petra pouted slightly, puffing out her cheeks in an attempt to look cute, although having known her for many years I failed to be impressed by such things. Instead, I started dicing onions for the risotto, half hoping she'd start crying or leave the room due to the smell, but she stayed put and merely took another sip of her coffee.

"I feel bad; he shouldn't have to know about our world just yet, he's just a normal teenager. Maybe we could erase his memories and he could just go on with his life?" She gazed into her cup as though hoping the bean juice would tell her what to do, which it didn't.

"Even if he doesn't remember there's a chance he could still be targeted, I mean the whole reason he's hiding is because they think he's connected to me." I turned on the stove and placed a frying pan on top so it start heating up, giving Petra another glance out of the corner of my eye. "Unless we find a way to make them not go after Eren, there's nothing we can do for him but what we're doing now."

"But he must have people who are worried about him, friends, family, maybe even a girlfriend; they all don't know what happened to him, right?"

"He's a missing person right now; fortunately Hanji did some magic and erased me from the memories of all students and teachers. A student and his teacher vanishing in the same day would be more problematic than just the student, and it would be too cruel to make his friends forget he exists..." I trailed off lamely, knowing all too well how it felt to have people forget who you are, deciding to start caramelizing the onions instead.

Footsteps sounded nearby and both Petra and I stiffened, trying to find out who it was without using any magic, after a few seconds Eren stuck his head in the doorway, glancing around at what was going on.

"How's dinner going? That crabby guy, Aurou I think, was complaining about being hungry." He stared at me with a weird look on his face. "Are you okay sir?"

I glared back at him. "What makes you think I wouldn't be?"

"Um..." He flushed and immediately broke eye contact, glancing anywhere but at me. "It's just... You...You..."

Petra must have noticed whatever Eren had and let out a laugh. "Rivaille you're crying! You're so cute!"

I wiped my palm on a towel nearby before touching my cheek, only to find out they were right. Shit, the onions had affected me instead, how had I not noticed? Sure, it wasn't much, but had I really been that much of an airhead that I didn't see my eyes were watering?

"I was cutting onions, I'm fine." I hurriedly wiped my face with the back of my hand, loathing having been stuck in such an awkward situation. This was twice now that the brat had seen me vulnerable, and I didn't like it.

"Oh, is that all?" The brunet still looked worried, as though trying to see if I was lying.

"Does it surprise you to find out that onions make immortals cry? We also have to eat and shit, if you were curious."

He looked puzzled now. "But in the hotel you mentioned not needing to eat."

Petra spoke up now, her voice cheerful since she knew about this topic. "Technically immortals don't need to eat, since they can't actually die, but if they don't eat something every once in a while they'll get weak. I'm not entirely sure how it works though, but we only have to eat once and drink stuff three or four times week to stay healthy. Some immortals like Hanji prefer to indulge and eat more often because they like how food tastes, it's not entirely necessary though." She glanced at me with a wicked light in her eyes. "Also Rivaille is the best cook ever; I could eat what he makes every day if it was possible."

"I refuse to cook for you shits every day." I scolded her as I lifted the lid on the pot of chicken stock that had just started boiling and smiled before returning to work on the risotto. "Scratch that you guys are terrible at cleaning up after yourselves, I'll do it."

"I can help if you like," Eren was still avoiding looking at me, preferring to stare at the box of rice several inches to my left. "I may not be of much use, but I got good grades in all the cooking classes my school offered."

Petra gave me a sly look before clapping her hands together excitedly. "That's a great idea, I bet things will go faster if both of you are cooking."

I sighed and stirred the rice, trying to see if the stock had been absorbed yet. "If you're as bad at cooking as you were at cleaning then I won't let you help for long, brat."

"Forgive me for trying to do something useful, I forgot you hate me." The teen's tone was harsh, and I heard him stomp away angrily.

There was silence for several seconds before Petra spoke up. "I think he misunderstood; you were letting him help you when usually nobody else is allowed so much as peel a carrot if you're cooking. Why did you say that?"

Honestly, I didn't know; it was true that I rarely let anyone else cook with me. I hadn't in the last decade that was for sure. Maybe I was trying to make up for how rude I'd been before, but that had failed miserably.

"I thought it might make him feel more comfortable with the situation he's in, letting him be a part of something."

"Want me to go talk to him?" She offered, placing her coffee cup on the counter, now drained of its contents.

"If you want to, I'm not sure it will do any good; he's really confused right now, what with everything that's happened to him recently. I'm not making things any easier though, I just can't talk to kids..."

Petra smiled at me before walking over and placing one hand on my shoulder, the most physical contact I allowed those in my inner circle. "You're trying though, which is more than you do with a lot of people, hopefully he'll see that soon."

"I don't think it will do any good." I admitted, hating my weakness in dealing with others.

"I'll talk with him, hopefully I can explain what you meant to say, and maybe he'll open up to me." She left the kitchen, leaving me behind in the large room, only to notice seconds later that my risotto was fucking burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> I'm not exactly sure what to say here. That was the chapter? I had a hard time with it, especially writing the second part for some reason.
> 
> Um, yeah, did you like the change to Mikasa and Armin? I thought it could be cool to see things on their end, hopefully it was. Also, cooking stuffs. I studied culinary arts in college so I know a lot of cooking terms, if you didn't understand anything feel free to send me a message and I can help. If you liked the cooking stuff I can add more? Wait that's dumb.
> 
> Levi is trying to be nicer to Eren, but Eren's kinda dense and doesn't see it, hopefully cooking together will bring them closer.
> 
> Also Happy Halloween! I'm working then but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have fun!


End file.
